


a heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved

by theclaravoyant



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Grief, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, platonic focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: The Doctor and Graham share a moment of grief and healing over their lost wives.Hurt/comfort. Some discussion of death. Rated T.inspired by & set soon after the Solitract ep (It Takes You Away)
Relationships: Grace O'Brien/Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 6
Kudos: 123
Collections: i back us every time [platonic team tardis]





	a heart that's broke is a heart that's been loved

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "It's not always like this," from Fictober 2019.
> 
> A moment of mutual grief, sharing, and healing between these two that I've been meaning to write since It Takes You Away and never quite pulled off.
> 
> Song title from Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran.
> 
> I am hoping to post approx a ficlet a day throughout December across a range of fandoms so keep your eyes out. Prompts welcome but unfortunately not guaranteed.

It feels strange, entering the empty flat. The absence of Grace’s warmth is palpable, even if its ghost remains in the way she has lovingly crafted and lived in her home.

The Doctor follows Graham up the steps and over the threshold, and waits in silence, trying not to watch or to fidget too much, as he is once again reminded of the striking absence of his wife. All too well, the Doctor knows what that is like, and even if she couldn’t hear Graham’s heart begin to race and his lungs struggle against the tears that suddenly fill his throat again, she would know. She also knows there is no cure for that feeling but time, so she waits, and browses the pictures on the wall and on the bookshelf. Mostly, they’re of Grace and Ryan.

“Tea?” Graham offers.

“Please,” the Doctor agrees. She strolls past a macaroni frame with a crayon drawing inside it; another frame, with what she assumes is a very young Ryan sitting atop a scruffy black pony, with an older man she doesn’t recognise – perhaps his father; more likely his grandfather – standing at its head. Then she comes across a third, and it’s an aged frame, like it’s something special, but the photo inside it is too new to match. It’s Graham and Grace, on their wedding day.

 _Time,_ she thinks. Isn’t that always the problem?

Graham clears his throat, and she moves away from the bookshelf to the lounge and sits with him. Usually, one or the other of them would be making up some distracting ramble by now, but it’s been a long… however long it’s been… and they’re too tired to pretend at anything else but the heaviness in their hearts. The Doctor tastes the tea – piled high with sugar, just the way she used to like it – and it goes down bittersweet.

“How do you do it, Doc?” Graham asks at last.

“Do what?”

“Do this. Anything. Everything.” His voice starts trembling, despite everything that’s led them here, and the Doctor feels a prick of a tear at her eye. She knows what he’s asking. “- How do you get up in the morning, without her?”

Though she knows no other way would have been less painful, the Doctor can’t help but wonder what inspired Graham to ask in that specific way. In the way that fills her memory with the red and golden light of all those mornings on Darillium. Years, she’d got. Years and years of waking up to the sunlight filtering through those curls and a tired smile and _Morning, Sweetie._

Until the morning she hadn’t.

How had she gotten up in the morning? Well she hadn’t at first. And when she had, there had been a great deal of crying and throwing of things. But when, how, had she started healing? That was, after all, what he was asking, was it not? Well, that had to have been when she had carved River’s name into a panel for her ceiling. Or perhaps… after the regeneration, when she had found…

She slips her fingers into her pocket, and pulls out the ring. Twirls it on the table in front of her, because rings have a way of making her want to do that (and because she kind of wants to be reminded, this time, of the exasperated smile it would put on River’s face).

“It’s not always like this,” the Doctor says, and as she watches the ring spin she knows it’s true. She spins it again. But though healing she may be, there’s an ache that still remains. An ache of wanting to hear River’s voice, to see her face, the way she almost thought – maybe the Solitract could have – she knows she never should have hoped for such a thing but deep down there’s still a part of her that would have given anything for one more moment of sweet pretence…

“Doc, I’m sorry,” Graham whispers. Suddenly the Doctor realises the ring has stopped spinning and has fallen flat on the table. How long has she been staring at it? How long have there been tears on her face?

Graham reaches across the table and takes her hand. He requests gently; “Tell me about her?”

The Doctor takes a deep breath.

“Her name was River,” she explains. “I lost her a long time ago, actually, but also quite recently. It’s… complicated.”

Graham hums, nods, tries not to interrupt.

“The first day we met,” the Doctor continues, “was the day she died. And the last time I saw her…”

She swallows hard. Graham squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back, as hard as she dares, until she finds the strength to continue.

“We were always meeting out of order, River and me. Just a time traveller’s lot, I s’pose. And she was _infuriating_ and tragic and clever and brave… and somehow, I think she always knew that I knew. And if she could get up, every day, knowing that, and not regretting it, how can I not? Does that… make any sense?”

“You know, actually,” Graham muses, “I think it does.”

He’s just about got tears on his face to match the Doctor’s now, as he thinks back to when he and Grace had first met. He’d always thought he’d be the first one of them to go, what with his cancer and all, but even when the writing had seemed written on the wall for him, she’d still wanted in on it. Now that he’s actually time-travelled he feels he has the experience to say what he’s always claimed; that it was like she’d known the Titanic was going to go down, and stepped onto it with him anyway. More than anything, Graham knows, the hurt he feels over Grace’s death is at the cruel twist of fate that it was her and not himself who had gone first. And sure, she had gone out bravely and lovingly, but hadn’t there been enough death in their lives? Hadn’t they earnt their peace?

But it was never about _earnt,_ was it? It was about choices. His choices. Grace’s choices. To raise Ryan. To fall in love. To get married. To protect their family. Wasn’t that how he’d gotten up every day since then? For his promise to Grace. For Ryan. For Yaz. For the Doctor. For the earth, and the people they had saved, maybe even the universe a time or two. Maybe he can keep getting up, for all that.

 _(“And if you don’t,”_ a familiar voice reminds him, “ _you know who’ll you be answering to.”)_

A smile touches his lips at that, and out of the corner of her eye, the Doctor sees it. Taking a deep breath, she shakes out her hair as if the misery might fall right out of it, and lets her own smile grow a little.

“She’ll always be with you,” the Doctor promises, “but it won’t always hurt.”

Graham nods, and takes a deep breath of his own. It smells like Grace – like her perfume, her knitting, her favourite plants – less and less these days, but it doesn’t feel like forgetting anymore. This time, dare he say it, it’s almost pleasant; like a memory of her, blessing the place she has left.

“I think I can live with that,” Graham says, and before either of them can delve into the fact that he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter, he clears his throat and stands again. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got in these cupboards. The kids’ll catch up in a mo’ and they’ll be ready to eat us out of house and home. Plus, I could go for a sarnie if I’m honest. Whaddaya say, Doc - cheese and pickle?”


End file.
